Who is a Saint?

Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.  Yet so we are.  The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God's children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed.  We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.

First Letter of St. John 3:1-3

November 1st is All Saints Day on the Church calendar.  It's a day for celebrating and contemplating the lives of the Saints.

The Denial of St. Peter, by Caravaggio

Who is a saint?  I've read many descriptions, some rather long and complicated and some short.  Here are some good (short) ones:

A saint is always someone through whose life we learn what God is like - and what we are called to be.  Only God 'makes' saints.  The Church merely identifies from time to time a few of these for imitation.

Anyone who is in Heaven, whether recognized here on earth, or not.

A person who kept on trying when everybody else gave up.

I'm not sure how theologically correct that last one is, but I like it.

There are two things I want to stress about saints.  First of all, the Church (Catholic or Orthodox) doesn't 'make' saints.  She merely recognizes, after much discernment and guidance by the Holy Spirit, certain individuals who led lives of 'heroic virtue'; that is, individuals who dedicated their lives to loving and serving God and who now live eternally in heaven with God.  It's kind of like the Church's 'Hall of Fame.'

This leads me to my second point.  The saints aren't those who walked the earth in a dreamy rapture all the time, carrying a prayer book or rosary beads, and who never lost their temper or said a bad word.  The heroic virtue these individuals practiced meant they struggled with and overcame their own personal shortcomings through God's grace.  They surrendered their lives - warts and all - to God.  They understood that they could do nothing, absolutely NOTHING, without God's grace and strength.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, by Jacques Antoine Vallin

 

The saints had their share of human weaknesses while they lived on earth.  We should all know about Saint Peter's shortcomings as a man from the New Testament.  He appeared to have a short temper and he denied our Lord three times the night before his crucifixion.  Saint Ambrose (4th century) had a quick and sharp tongue.  Saint Therese of Lisieux (19th century) admitted to being tempted by blasphemous thoughts.  Saint Padre Pio (20th century) struggled with a short temper.  Those are just a few that come immediately to my mind.

God's will is that all be saved (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9).  We are all meant to spend eternity with God.  Whatever our personal shortcomings, we are all called to be saints.  We must choose every single day to love God and give him our entire selves, body and soul, thoughts, words and actions.  Only then can God make us saints.